Saturday, August 11, 2012

The Good Samaritans

The Good Samaritans

After being back in the States for my son’s marvelous
wedding to his wonderful new wife, I have returned refreshed to Azerbaijan for
more Peace Corps work.The time away has
also allowed me to ponder a few of the wonderful and a few of the challenging
aspects of Peace Corps work in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan
is a country rightly credited with outgoing hospitality towards guests, and
this has certainly been true, as I have experienced it—an over-abundance of
warmth and generosity.For my July
birthday, every group of students, colleagues, work-mates and associates
honored me, as they basically do all the time…all my Azeri friends assure me,
that no matter what I need, they are always willing to help me in any way they
can.I have helpful friends who respect
and appreciate the efforts I make, and while I was gone in America, I
missed my daily interactions with all of them.

But it is also noticeable that this hospitality, indeed
respect, extends to the guests and individuals with whom one—Azeris
included—has personal interactions.It
is equally true, that showing common courtesies to nameless people one might
encounter on the street or elsewhere—well, that is a different matter.Residents here have been known to throw
garbage out their upper story windows onto the sidewalks below, and if a
passing pedestrian is hit, it is a kind of “sport.” (Early on in living here, I
was advised by some of my friends and associates to always walk away from the
apartment buildings and close to the street curb, lest I be hit by garbage
flying out of an upper story apartment window—and indeed once I could tell
someone tried several times to drop eggs on me…oh, well…)Don’t want to walk too close to the street either
though, because again pedestrians are a kind of “sport” for men behind the
wheel of a car…if a driver can swerve quickly toward you and then back again
(without hitting you), it shows he has “great driving skill,” if not careless
disregard for pedestrians.Azeri friends
recently returning from the States or Europe have remarked that one of the most
notable and noticeable things for them is that, unlike Azerbaijan, pedestrians elsewhere
have rights and respect, which is not afforded in this society where the more
powerful (man behind the wheel) demands respect and greater rights than the
less powerful (the lowly, nameless pedestrian).Cars here never stop for pedestrians (it’s the other way around!), and
in fact cars speed up and head straight for pedestrians who might be crossing
the street, and honk at pedestrians to get out of their way.Again, it is a kind of sport
to see how fast they can drive, how close they can come to a pedestrian,
without actually hitting him.This lack
of common courtesy is also evident in the mounting verbal harassment toward women
on the street; and for female American Peace Corps Volunteers this particular
lack of respect for women is an especially unpleasant challenge.

In thinking about these challenges and differences of
societal values, I began pondering how Azeris would react to a nameless fellow
human being, if that human being were in serious trouble.Would the lack of common courtesies cause
them to turn a blind eye (as happened once, when I witnessed a woman fall on
the sidewalk and the young men standing near-by just gawked)?Do Azeris have any societal concept akin to being
a Good Samaritan?And then it happened:

A day after returning from the States and an extended vacation
in Berlin and Istanbul, my friend and fellow PCV Liz and I
were traveling per marshrutka from my town to hers.Soon after being on the road a ways, in a
fairly rural area, our marshrutka driver quickly pulled over to the side of the
road, let out an exclamation, rapidly halted our vehicle, and jumped out from
behind the wheel of our marshrutka.There, down an embankment about 5 feet lower than the road way, was an
overturned car, wheels still spinning—the car must have jumped the road and
flipped in mid-air, and the accident had apparently just happened.But within less than a minute, all the men
riding in the marshrutka were down the embankment helping the marshrutka driver
offer aid to the injured—a man, bleeding, but sitting bewildered in the grass
next to the car; a woman, face-down, unconscious and partially trapped under
the vehicle; and a young boy, on the opposite side of the vehicle, lying limp
and unconscious.And immediately the
passing cars from both directions stopped to offer help—pulling the woman away
from the car, rousing her with some cool water, helping the young boy likewise,
attempting to bandage the bleeding.Everyone who could ran down the embankment to see what they could do to
help.Some were on their
cell-phones.But I credit the quick
thinking of PCV Liz:she had the
foresight to call our very excellent Azeri Peace Corps Safety and Security Officer
in Baku.After explaining to him what had happened,
that she and I were not involved in the accident, he asked to speak to the
marshrutka driver. The driver was able
to explain to the Peace Corps Safety and Security Officer in Baku approximately where the accident
occurred; then our Safety and Security Officer informed Liz that he would
immediately notify the police in the nearest town.In a country without a nationwide 911 emergency
service, this was a huge service that Liz and the Peace Corps Safety and
Security Officer did.Soon a police car
and an aid car did arrive from the nearby town.But I cannot help but also credit all the drivers and passengers of no
less than a dozen cars who stopped to offer assistance.The out-pouring of help from this multitude
of people to those strangers in very real need was truly amazing.There were many, many Azeri Good Samaritans
on the road that day!